For the past 20 years, platform businesses that match, connect, and enable transactions among buyers and sellers have been growing at a tremendous rate. These businesses continue to disrupt traditional businesses in almost every sector and redefine the rules of success. In Platform Strategy, Laure Claire Reillier and Benoit Reillier define the unique characteristics of these emerging businesses, how they operate, and how platform business leaders and traditional business leaders alike can harness their power to develop and scale innovative business models. Through this comprehensive guide, the authors offer solutions to address some of the unique challenges that platform businesses face as they ignite and scale platforms to critical mass and find success in this new way of doing business.

Platform businesses serve multisided markets. While these businesses evolve and change over time, they remain focused on five key activities:

Attracting a critical mass of participants from each side of the market. Business leaders must attract the attention of potential users and producers and acquire them as new customers. As platforms mature, business leaders must also focus on retaining a critical mass of participants on both sides to build self-sustaining networks.

Matching producers and consumers of goods. Leaders and platform designers must provide a means of matching producers and users in a timely way that meets their specific needs. They must ensure that there is an optimal level of choice for platform participants as they search for solutions.

Connecting potential buyers and sellers. Platform designers must provide ways for producers and users to connect and exchange additional information and establish the level of trust that is necessary for conducting transactions.

Enabling transactions to take place. Platform designers must also provide a means for exchanging the agreed-upon money, information, or services in a manner that drives value for businesses and maximizes the value of interactions and core transactions between buyers and sellers.

Optimizing their operating and ecosystems. Business leaders and platform designers must work together to fully optimize the core functions of their platforms, including their abilities to match, connect, and enable transactions among their platforms’ participants. They must collect, analyze, and learn from data to enhance participants’ experiences and make continuous enhancements to their platforms.

Many people mistakenly believe that creativity and innovative potential are static, inherent qualities. In Your Creative Mind, Scott Cochrane offers insight into how individuals can master their minds and unlock their creative and innovative potential, all while taking steps to live healthier and more fulfilled lives.

There are five steps that can help people on their journeys to dynamic growth:

1. Be flexible. Stagnation and attachment to business models and market strategies can be fatal. In order to be successful, individuals must be willing to pivot when a shifting market or new technological innovation calls for it.

2. Improve their minds. Creativity can be unlocked by taking steps to ensure that the mind has a proper balance of chemicals and is constantly learning and growing.

3. Maintain positive mindsets. Fearing failure and basing one’s performance on the performance of another are two actions that are destructive to creativity. It is important for people to think in terms of possibilities rather than probabilities, and to focus on positive motivations.

4. Maintain positive relationships. How a relationship is developed determines its trajectory. Business partnerships must be approached with a shared vision of an ideal future that is based on unlocking the potential of all parties involved.

5. Visualize and meditate. Techniques that clear the mind of unnecessary distractions and help to create both inner peace and a heightened focus on objectives are vital tools of a bold mind.